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6 2/12 � FOOD-Lab International Introduction Traditionally, people think it is environ- mental protection when they destroy less: “Please, protect the environment, reduce your water-consumption.” “Reduce your energy-bill.” “Reduce your waste-produc- tion.” “Protect the environment.” You can see this in every hotel, where protection means to use fewer towels, to use less de- tergent, etc. But this does not really pro- tect the environment – it only destroys less. Do you really protect your child when you only beat it three times instead of five times? In this sense, East-Germany and Poland had been protecting the environment much better than West-Germany or the Netherlands before re-unification. In 1991, the EPEA-institute started a systematic analysis of environmental quality and di- versity in East-Germany. It became clear that the quality of soil and the species di- versity was so much higher than in most parts of West-Germany. The main reason for this was not legislation – it was just inefficiency. The system was so inefficient that it left a lot of highly contaminated spots. But overall, the environmental quality was so much higher than in West- Germany, just due to inefficiency. So if you do something wrong, don’t make it per- fect – otherwise, it gets perfectly wrong. Because West-Germany promised to provide the same quality of life in both parts of the country, sludge from paper- recycling was brought to East-Germany for more than 10 years in order to improve the soil quality, millions and millions of tons. This paper was never intended to be recycled: the sludge contained contami- nations which are not suitable to go into biological systems. This practice ended: today, the paper-recycling sludge goes into cardboards and contaminates food, as has recently been shown for pizza- packaging from different producers. How- ever, this contamination is not just limited on pizza: all these paper-boards have such a contamination-problem. This is why we | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ||||| EFFECTIVENESS Cradle-to-Cradle Effectiveness as a new approach for analysis and test-equipment Our Author: Prof. Dr Michael Braungart, [email protected] The Cradle to Cradle ® metabolisms are divided into biological (left) and technical cycles. Biological nutrients constitute products of use, such as textiles and car tires. Technical nutrients constitute products made of rare raw materials that can and should be kept out of the environment. Techni- cal nutrients include products such as washing machines, or bicycles.
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Page 1: 06-09 Cradle Braungart - Epea · alit ulla faccum duipsum velit ad tie etue tat, corem iriustrud magnim endignisit praestissit vercipit adip enit doluptat do-lore doluptat iuscidunt

6 2/12 � FOOD-Lab International

IntroductionTraditionally, people think it is environ-mental protection when they destroy less: “Please, protect the environment, reduce your water-consumption.” “Reduce your energy-bill.” “Reduce your waste-produc-tion.” “Protect the environment.” You can see this in every hotel, where protection means to use fewer towels, to use less de-tergent, etc. But this does not really pro-tect the environment – it only destroys

less. Do you really protect your child when you only beat it three times instead of five times?

In this sense, East-Germany and Poland had been protecting the environment much better than West-Germany or the Netherlands before re-unification. In 1991, the EPEA-institute started a systematic analysis of environmental quality and di-versity in East-Germany. It became clear that the quality of soil and the species di-versity was so much higher than in most parts of West-Germany. The main reason for this was not legislation – it was just inefficiency. The system was so inefficient that it left a lot of highly contaminated spots. But overall, the environmental quality was so much higher than in West-Germany, just due to inefficiency. So if you

do something wrong, don’t make it per-fect – otherwise, it gets perfectly wrong.

Because West-Germany promised to provide the same quality of life in both parts of the country, sludge from paper-recycling was brought to East-Germany for more than 10 years in order to improve the soil quality, millions and millions of tons. This paper was never intended to be recycled: the sludge contained contami-nations which are not suitable to go into biological systems. This practice ended: today, the paper-recycling sludge goes into cardboards and contaminates food, as has recently been shown for pizza-packaging from different producers. How-ever, this contamination is not just limited on pizza: all these paper-boards have such a contamination-problem. This is why we

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ||||EFFECTIVENESS

Cradle-to-CradleEffectiveness as a new approach for analysis and test-equipment

Our Author: Prof. Dr Michael

Braungart, [email protected]

The Cradle to Cradle® metabolisms are

divided into biological (left) and technical

cycles. Biological nutrients constitute

products of use, such as textiles and car tires. Technical

nutrients constitute products made of

rare raw materials that can and should

be kept out of the environment. Techni-cal nutrients include

products such as washing machines, or

bicycles.

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72/12 � FOOD-Lab International

Duismodolor sit utpat, quamet augiam-con volortionsed molobor iustis alis dolo-bore vulpute te velessisse min henibh el utpatem alisi.

Aliquamconum vendit prate min vero dolore tatin elisi ex el utpat, vullan ulla consent ulluptat lam eugue commolenibh eu feugait, vendit ad ex estionu lluptat la feugait velit alit eu facin ea commodolor aut la fTe ea feu feummy nos nostio do dionsectet ea cor secte min utat prat, volum zzriusci tet iure tatincilis nit ut ut iusto consequ isiscil dolesto od magnit la feugiam consed tat, velit velesed tat

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Duismodolor sit utpat, quamet augiam-con volortionsed molobor iustis alis dolo-bore vulpute te velessisse min henibh el utpatem alisi.

Dies ist eine Beispielüberschrift»

would like to look more profoundly at the design of products and packaging.

Isn’t it interesting that people want to be good for the economy, good for society – but when it comes to the environment, the highest level is not to exist, to be car-bon-neutral, to be climate-neutral. You can only be carbon-neutral or climate-neutral if you don’t exist. Did you ever see a climate-neutral tree? Or a carbon-neu-tral tree? We need to learn to generate a beneficial footprint instead of minimizing our footprint. It certainly makes sense to minimize the use of fossil fuels. But where is our beneficial footprint?

For being less bad, we are too many people on this planet. This is why we need innovation where we can show what products can look like. But right now, they are amazingly primitive. For example look at the heavy-metal content of toner dust from a laser-printer, where there is no quality-control, neither about the composition nor the size of the par-ticles. A diagram by the Hamburg Envi-ronmental Institute (HUI) clearly shows this. Or let’s take a silicon-material, which is used for ice-cubes or baking dishes. Silicones aren’t even regulated by REACH. In Cradle-to-Cradle, there are only two dif-ferent cycles: the technosphere and the biosphere. It eliminates the concept of waste based on renewable resources and energy-sources and celebrates diversity.

From efficiency to effectiveness

The shift from efficiency to effectiveness necessitates a fundamental redesign of products and the system of industrial material flows within which they circu-late. Cradle-to-Cradle design defines a broad framework for creating eco-effec-tive industrial systems, but for businesses to put this framework into practice they need both the right technologies and the right strategies.

Standard life cycle assessment (LCA) is an unsuitable approach for generat-ing eco-effective products and processes because its linear nature does not allow for optimization in the context of Cradle-to-Cradle design. Braungart and Mc-Donough1 have defined a stepwise strate-gy for businesses to realize the transition from eco-efficiency to eco-effectiveness on the level of product design:

Step 1: Free of …Step 2: Personal preferencesStep 3: The passive positive listStep 4: The active positive listStep 5: Reinvention

This five-step process begins with an elimination of undesirable substances and moves towards the positive defini-tion of desirable substances (Step 4). Ul-timately, Step 5 calls for a reinvention of

products by reconsidering how they may optimally fulfill the need or needs for which they are actually intended while simultaneously being supportive of eco-logical and social systems.

Step 1: Free of …Most companies today have a very lim-ited knowledge of the toxicological and eco-toxicological characteristics of the substances that make up their products. An automobile, for instance, may con-tain thousands of different materials and chemicals. Gaining an understanding of the impact that each of these materials may have on the natural environment and human health is an immense under-taking, and something that the large ma-jority of businesses have not done and do not immediately have the capacity to do.

Step 2: Personal preferencesOnce the most undesirable substances have been removed from a product, the next step is to begin to make edu-cated choices about those substances that should be included in the product. Though the best way to do this is to have a detailed knowledge about the impacts of a particular substance on ecological and human systems throughout its life cycle, this is often impractical or even impossible. Furthermore, different sub-stances have different types of impacts.

Should a company pre-fer a substance which is potentially sensitizing or one which is persistent in the environment; a substance that may con-tribute to global warming or one that might end up harming marine life?

Cradle-to-Cradle

Phase 1: collecting an inventory of all the materi-als in a product. Phase 2: Assess all the materials to determine their environ-mental and human impact. Phase 3: Instead of just minimizing the amount of undesirable materi-als, and processes in a product (ecoefficiency) work towards implementing changes that allow for the use of positive materials, and processes (ecoeffec-tiveness).

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8 2/12 � FOOD-Lab International

Step 3: The passive positive list

Step 3 includes a systematic assessment of each ingredient in a product to clas-sify them according to their toxicologi-cal and eco-toxicological characteristics, especially their capability to flow within biological and technical metabolisms. For products of consumption, criteria to examine shouldinclude for instance: toxicity to humans (acute, delayed, de-velopmental, reproductive), aquatic tox-icity, persistence and bioaccumulation in nature, sensitization potential, muta-genicity, carcinogenicity and endocrine disruption potential. Based upon the as-sessment of a material or chemical ac-cording to these criteria, a passive posi-tive list can be generated which classifies each substance according to its suitabil-ity for the biological metabolism. This list can be used to determine the degree of

additional optimization necessary for a particular product to be a true product of consumption.

Step 4: The active positive list Step 4 includes the optimization of the passive positive list to the point until each ingredient in the product is positively de-fined as a biological or technical nutrient. Whereas step 3 establishes knowledge of the degree to which each component in a product needs to be optimized, step 4 implements this optimization to the full-est degree.

Climatex® Lifecycle™ upholstery fabric is an example of a product whose con-stituent materials are positively defined as biological nutrients. Created in a col-laboration amongst EPEA Internationale Umweltforschung GmbH, McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry and Rohner Textil, Climatex® Lifecycle™ is a complete-

ly biodegradable and compostable fabric. Each component was selected according to EPEA’s positive listing methodology for its positive environmental and human health characteristics and its suitability as a biological nutrient.

The fabric is made from natural fibers, including wool from free-ranging, hu-manely sheared New Zealand sheep, and Ramie, a tall, fibrous plant grown in Asia. To identify suitable dyes for the fabric, 60 major dye producers were asked to pro-vide the necessary information on their best dyes to enable an assessment of their suitability as biological nutrients. From a selection of 1600 dye formulations, EPEA utilized their methodology to identify 16 that met both the desired technical and environmental specifications2.

The optimization of the materials and dyes used in the product also has an im-pact upon the environmental profile of the production process. Before eco-effective optimization of the product, trimmings from the mill were classified as hazardous waste requiring special (and expensive) disposal. After optimization, waste mate-rial from the mill could be made into felt to be used as garden mulch, and in the cultivation of strawberries, cucumbers and a wide range of other plants.

Step 4 also applies for products of ser-vice. An automobile, for instance, might be designed so all of the materials and components it contains are biological or technical nutrients. Brake pads, tires and interior upholstery might be designed as biological nutrients because these are components that will likely degrade over the period of use of the car. The frame and body, on the other hand, might opti-mally be designed as technical nutrients like steel and polypropylene so they can be regained and upcycled into new au-tomobile components or other products after the use period of the car.

Step 5: ReinventionWhere step 4 stops at the level of redefin-ing the substances in a product, step 5 involves a reinvention of the relationship of the product with the customer. The concept of reinvention addresses the in-terconnected nature of ecological, social and economic systems by pushing the idea of the biological and technical me-tabolisms beyond the confines of existing product and service forms. Strategies for reinvention view products from the per-

The results of an off gassing

test of a typical sili-

cone based ice cube

tray.

Cradle to Cradle® design

creates triple top

line growth. Prod-

ucts are designed to

be equally beneficial to the environ-ment, soci-ety and the

economy.

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92/12 � FOOD-Lab International

spective of the services they provide and the needs they fulfill for customers and for the broader context of social and eco-logical systems.

The product of service concept offers an ideal strategy for this. One might think about a washing machine, for instance, in terms of the service it provides: a conve-nient cleansing system for clothes. When customers purchase a washing machine, they are not paying for ownership of the materials it contains but for this service that it provides. If companies began to sell the service of a convenient cleansing system for clothes instead of the material object of the washing machine, a new set of immediate benefits becomes apparent. A company could potentially still provide a washing machine to customers, but perhaps under the form of a time-limited lease, or 3000 cycles of washing includ-ing service and possibly even detergent and water. Ownership of the washing ma-chine itself would not change hands.

One benefit of such a system is that cus-tomers are no longer confronted with the liability associated with owning a prod-uct which contains potentially hazardous materials, connected with the dilemma of what to do with them at the end of the product’s useful life. Another benefit for customers is that their interests are now aligned with those of their service provider. Under a traditional situation of ownership transfer, it is at least partially in the interest of the company to provide a product that fails as quickly as possible because this enables them an opportuni-ty to sell yet another washing machine to their customer. This system encourages

the production of cheap, low-qual-ity goods. When products are pro-vided in the form of a service scheme, however, compa-nies are interested in producing the best product pos-sible, because the better the needs of customers are fulfilled the more likely they are to remain custom-ers after the end of the service period. Furthermore, when

products are constructed using biological and technical nutrient materials, com-panies have the added benefit of getting these valuable nutrients back after the product’s defined use period. This en-ables the application, for instance, of high quality technical nutrient materials like polysulfonic polymers, which are too ex-pensive for application in most products when they are not regained after use. The result is higher quality and less expensive products.

Conclusions

Eco-effectiveness is a concept for the production and consumption of goods and services that goes beyond the re-duction of negative consequences im-plied in eco-efficiency and zero emis-sion. Eco-effectiveness positively defines the beneficial environmental, social, and economic traits of goods and services, thereby eliminating the fundamental problems (material flow quality limita-tions, antagonism to economic growth and innovation, and toxicity) that arise in eco-efficiency strategies.

Eco-effectiveness encompasses a set of strategies – Cradle-to-Cradle design, positive lists, intelligent materials pool-ing, etc. – that enable the formation of cyclical material flow metabolisms. Eco-effective material flow systems not only empower materials to maintain their status as resources, but by estab-lishing a coherent network of informa-tion flows amongst actors in the mate-rial flow chain, they enable a continual accumulation of knowledge that forms the basis for true upcycling. This con-

1 McDonough W, Braungart M. Re-inventing the world, Green@Work. 2001;8:43e5.McDonough W, Braungart M. Reinvent-ing the world: step two, Green@Work. 2001;9:37e40.McDonough W, Braungart M. Reinvent-ing the world: step three, Green@Work. 2001;10:33e5.McDonough W, Braungart M. Reinvent-ing the world: step four, Green@Work. 2001;11:29e32.McDonough W, Braungart M. Reinvent-ing the world: step five, Green@Work. 2001;12:32e5.

2 Kälin A. Positive definierter Chemika-lieneinsatz als Voraussetzung für die Schließung von Material- und Wasser-kreislaufen: Das Beispiel des Möbel-bezugstoffes Climatex Lifecycle der Rohner Textil AG. In: von Weizsäcker EU, Stigson B, Seiler-Hausmann JD, edi-tors. Von Ökoeffizienz zu nachhaltiger Entwicklung in Unternehmen. Wupper-tal: Wuppertal Institute; 2001.

tinuously accumulating intelligence becomes a perpetually source of added value to products and services, and provides for a supportive relationship between eco-effective industrial sys-tems and long-term economic prosper-ity. The aim is not only to achieve zero emissions, but to utilize materials in a way that maintains or increases their value and productivity over time.

Coherent biological and technical metabolisms ensure the availability of raw materials for industrial processes. In the technical metabolism, material reprocessing is conducted by industry and generates added employment and further economic activity. Within the biological metabolism, material repro-cessing is carried out by ecological pro-cesses, and results in the regeneration and replenishment of natural systems. This supportive relationship between the biological metabolism and the health of natural systems is the basis for a positive recoupling of the relationship between ecology and economy.

Cradle-to-Cradle offers solutions for the food industry and specifically for labora-tories to use technical equipment as ser-vices and to do analysis around leaching, off-gassing of products far beyond the existing levels.

A typical silicone base ice cube tray made with undefined materials.